The Island of Falling Stars
Prologue: Vacation Protocols
The command center of Chaldea hummed with unusual excitement. After months of relentless missions stabilizing Lostbelt remnants that threatened human history, Director Goredolf Musik had finally announced what the staff had been desperately awaiting: vacation protocols.
"Are you sure this is wise?" Da Vinci asked, her mechanical body gracefully leaning over Sion's workstation. The holographic display showed a shimmering island that seemed to flicker between different states of reality.
Sion Eltnam Atlasia, brilliant alchemist and the newest addition to Chaldea's command staff, smiled confidently. "The readings are stable, and it's a perfect controlled environment. The servants deserve some rest, and frankly, so do our Masters."
Ritsuka Fujimaru, savior of humanity several times over, looked exhausted but perked up at the mention of vacation. Beside them stood Mash Kyrielight, ever vigilant despite the promise of relaxation.
"What exactly is this place?" Mash asked, adjusting her glasses as she studied the projection.
"We're calling it 'The Island of Falling Stars,'" Sion explained. "It's a pocket reality existing at the seam between existence and dream—a paradise untouched by the complications of regular human history."
"And you're certain it's safe?" Goredolf asked nervously, already imagining the paperwork should anything go wrong.
Da Vinci tapped her staff on the floor. "As safe as anything can be in our line of work. We'll deploy several Servants first for reconnaissance, then the rest can follow for some well-deserved downtime."
Ritsuka smiled. "I could definitely use a beach day. Who's on the initial team?"
Chapter 1: Paradise Detected
The tropical air was heavy with the scent of exotic flowers as the reconnaissance team materialized on the pristine beach. White sand stretched in a perfect crescent, meeting crystal waters that shimmered with impossible clarity.
Gilgamesh, in casual attire rather than his golden armor, looked around with mild disdain. "This place reeks of divinity," he remarked, his red eyes scanning the treeline. "But not one I recognize."
"It's beautiful," Jeanne d'Arc breathed, removing her sandals to feel the warm sand between her toes. The Saint rarely had opportunities to appreciate natural beauty during her short mortal life.
Beside her, Merlin inhaled deeply, his fluffy white hair dancing in the gentle breeze. Unlike the others who were drinking in the scenery, his expression was serious.
"Something's not quite right," the Mage of Flowers murmured. "Can you feel it, Hassan?"
The First Hassan, imposing even in his attempt at beach-appropriate attire (which still involved a skull mask and dark flowing garments), nodded slowly. "The boundary between life and death wavers here. This is not merely a place of relaxation."
"Must you all be so suspicious?" Nero Claudius twirled in her red bikini, already fully committed to vacation mode. "Roma was not built in a day, and neither should our enjoyment be diminished by minor concerns!"
As they ventured further inland, following a path lined with flowers that seemed to change color depending on who was looking at them, Cu Chulainn paused. The Irish hero tilted his head, listening.
"Anyone else hear that?" he asked.
The group fell silent. At first, there was nothing but the gentle lapping of waves and rustling of leaves. Then, a melody—faint but unmistakable—drifted through the air. It was both ancient and new, as if someone had taken the world's first song and reimagined it through the lens of dreams.
"The tide is singing," Tamamo-no-Mae whispered, her fox ears twitching. "It's telling stories of worlds long forgotten."
Ritsuka, who had insisted on joining the reconnaissance despite protests from Mash and the command center, stepped forward. "Let's follow it."
As they proceeded deeper into the island's interior, the landscape became increasingly surreal. Flowers bloomed and wilted in seconds. Small creatures that resembled nothing from known biology scurried across their path. Most strikingly, stars—actual celestial bodies—occasionally detached from the daytime sky and drifted downward, dissolving into motes of light before reaching the ground.
"Time is fractured here," Mash observed, watching as a waterfall nearby flowed both upward and downward simultaneously.
"Not fractured," Merlin corrected, his usually playful demeanor replaced by scholarly concentration. "Unbound. As if whoever created this place exists beyond the constraints of linear time."
The path led them to a vast clearing at the island's center. There, a sight of breathtaking majesty awaited: a colossal tree that seemed to transcend physical space, its trunk wider than many buildings and its branches extending not just outward but seemingly into other dimensions. Its leaves shimmered with constellations, and its roots plunged deep into the earth, occasionally pulsing with cosmic light.
"The Cosmic Tree," Gilgamesh muttered. Unlike his usual arrogance, there was a note of genuine wonder in his voice. "I've seen renditions in my treasury of knowledge, but to witness it directly..."
Leonardo da Vinci's voice crackled through their communication devices. "Readings are going crazy! Whatever that tree is, it's putting out more energy than anything we've ever measured. More than the Temple of Time, more than Solomon's throne."
And there, at the base of the impossible tree, lying in serene repose upon a bed of starlight moss, was a figure of such overwhelming presence that several members of the team instinctively took a step back.
"Is that... a Servant?" Ritsuka asked, voice hushed.
"No," Merlin replied gravely. "That, my dear Master, is something far more ancient and powerful than any Heroic Spirit."
The figure appeared male, with long cascading hair that contained the colors of the cosmos itself—void-black interspersed with starlight silver and threads of gold. Though his eyes were closed in slumber, an aura of supreme authority emanated from him, distorting the very fabric of reality around his resting form. His flowing robes seemed woven from the essence of creation itself, inscribed with runes and symbols that hurt to look at directly.
"We should leave," Hassan advised, his hand instinctively moving to where his sword would normally be. "This one's existence threatens the very concept of death itself."
But before they could retreat, the air around them thickened. The singing of the tides grew louder, and the falling stars increased in frequency, plummeting from the sky like cosmic rain.
The sleeping figure's eyelids fluttered.
"Oh, we are in trouble now," Merlin sighed. "Vacation's over before it began."
Chapter 2: Awakening
The figure beneath the Cosmic Tree didn't so much awaken as shift from one state of being to another. His eyes opened slowly, revealing multilayered irises that cycled through gold, silver, void black, chaotic purple, vibrant green, and dreamlike blue—an impossible gaze that contained multitudes.
Space itself seemed to hold its breath.
"Visitors," he spoke, his voice resonating not just in their ears but in their very souls. Each Servant felt it differently—Gilgamesh heard the voice of a worthy rival, Jeanne the compassion of divinity, Hassan the inevitability of cosmic law. "How... unexpected."
As he rose to his feet, reality rippled around him. The ground beneath their feet momentarily became transparent, revealing not earth but a view of vast galaxies swirling below. Then it solidified again, though none of them were entirely convinced of its permanence anymore.
Ritsuka, despite warnings from Mash, stepped forward. "We are representatives of Chaldea. We mean no harm to this place."
The being tilted his head slightly, hair floating as if underwater despite the tropical air. "Chaldea," he repeated, the word causing miniature constellations to briefly appear in the air. "Ah, the guardians of human history. Your reputation transcends even the boundaries of dreams."
He approached with a fluid grace that suggested he wasn't entirely bound by physical laws. With each step, faint imprints of cosmic light remained briefly before fading.
"I am Lián Wújiàn," he introduced himself with a slight bow that somehow felt both deeply respectful and entirely performative—as if he was honoring a custom he had invented himself. "The Boundless Crown of All Paths. This realm falls under my guardianship."
Gilgamesh, never one to be outdone, stepped forward. "King of Heroes, Gilgamesh of Uruk. Your 'realm' appears to be suffering from some instability. Is this your doing?"
Lián's impossible eyes fixed on Gilgamesh, and for a moment, the two most arrogant beings in the vicinity sized each other up. Then, surprisingly, Lián Wújiàn laughed—a sound like cosmic wind through crystalline chimes.
"Perceptive, King of Heroes. Indeed, something is amiss. I should not have been sleeping." He looked troubled, gazing up at the falling stars. "I was engaged in meditation across several dimensions when I sensed a disturbance. I came to investigate, but upon arrival..."
He frowned, an expression that caused small cracks in the air around him. "My memories are fragmented. Someone or something has tampered with this realm—and by extension, with me."
Merlin approached cautiously, his staff held loosely but ready. "This island exists at the boundary of existence and dreams. As someone familiar with the realm of dreams, I can sense that the usual barriers are weakening. Reality here is becoming... malleable."
"Precisely," Lián nodded. "And as reality bends, time fractures. The falling stars are fragments of potential futures crashing into the present. The singing tides are echoes of pasts that never were."
Cu Chulainn, who had been unusually quiet, suddenly pointed toward the horizon. "Hate to interrupt the metaphysical discussion, but we've got company."
In the distance, the treeline was shifting. Not swaying in the wind, but literally changing position, as if the forest itself was mobile. And from within that moving woodland emerged figures—humanoid but clearly not human, their forms shifting between solid and translucent, their features masks of hostility.
"Dream Devourers," Lián Wújiàn named them, his voice hardening. "They consume the boundaries between realities. They should not be here."
"Hostile entities identified," Mash reported to Chaldea while deploying her shield. "Vacation status officially suspended."
"So much for beach day," Ritsuka sighed, preparing command seals. "Servants, prepare for combat!"
Chapter 3: Fractures in Paradise
The Dream Devourers moved with unsettling fluidity, sometimes appearing to teleport short distances as they phased between different states of reality. They resembled humans only in the vaguest sense—limbs too long, faces smooth and featureless except for gaping maws filled with crystalline teeth.
"These creatures feed on concepts as much as flesh," Lián explained as the Servants formed a protective perimeter around Ritsuka and Mash. "They particularly hunger for beings of power—Servants would be a feast for them."
"Then they shall starve today," Gilgamesh declared, golden portals opening behind him. Weapons of legend emerged, firing toward the encroaching horde.
The Noble Phantasms tore through the first wave of Dream Devourers, but where they fell, the ground itself seemed to dissolve into prismatic mist before reforming. More creatures emerged from this transformed terrain, as if the island itself was infected.
Jeanne raised her standard, its holy light burning away several of the creatures that ventured too close. "These beings... they feel similar to demons, but emptier somehow."
"Because they are vessels," Lián Wújiàn observed, making no move to join the battle yet. His eyes tracked the movement of the creatures with analytical precision. "Something is using them, directing them."
Cu Chulainn leaped into action, Gáe Bolg spinning in lethal arcs. "Less talking, more fighting!" the Child of Light called out, his spear bisecting three Dream Devourers in a single sweep.
As the battle intensified, the island's instability grew more pronounced. The ground beneath them shifted between states—sometimes sand, sometimes stone, occasionally transparent views into starry voids. The sky cycled through dawn, noon, and dusk in random patterns.
Nero fought back-to-back with Tamamo, the Emperor's flaming sword complementing the fox priestess's mystical talismans. "Even Rome never faced such strange invaders!" Nero declared, her theatrical fighting style effective against the unpredictable movements of their foes.
Amid the chaos, Ritsuka noticed that Lián Wújiàn remained strangely passive. The cosmic being observed the battle with detached interest, only occasionally raising a hand to casually erase a Dream Devourer that got too close to him.
"Aren't you going to help?" Ritsuka called out, as Mash's shield deflected an attack that would have reached them.
Lián's multilayered gaze fell on the human Master. "I am... conserving power. Something has drained me, bound aspects of my true nature. In this weakened state, I must understand the enemy before committing."
But as the words left his mouth, the largest rift yet tore open the sky above the Cosmic Tree. From within emerged a colossal Dream Devourer, its body composed of shifting nebulae and void-black matter. It descended directly toward Lián Wújiàn with unmistakable purpose.
"It seems understanding will have to wait," Lián sighed. With a gesture that seemed to bend the light around his hand, he summoned what appeared to be a simple paper fan—except the paper was clearly crafted from solidified starlight, and the frame from materials not found in any earthly realm.
As the massive creature lunged, Lián Wújiàn simply flicked the fan once.
Reality sheared along the fan's path. The Dream Devourer didn't so much die as cease to exist along that particular cross-section, its severed halves dissolving into constituent concepts rather than flesh.
The display of power, casual as it was, left the Servants momentarily stunned. Even Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow in reluctant approval.
But the moment of victory was short-lived. The dissipating essence of the large Devourer didn't fade away but instead coalesced around the Cosmic Tree, sinking into its roots. The mighty tree shuddered, and several of its star-filled leaves turned black.
"No," Lián whispered, genuine alarm breaking through his composed exterior. He rushed to the tree, placing a hand on its vast trunk. Where he touched, healthy cosmic light briefly returned before dimming again.
"What's happening?" Mash asked, joining him at the tree while the other Servants continued to fight the remaining Dream Devourers.
"The tree is the anchor point of this realm," Lián explained urgently. "It connects the Island of Falling Stars to all other realities. If it falls, this entire pocket dimension will collapse—potentially creating a cascade effect across neighboring realities."
"Including the one Chaldea exists in?" Ritsuka asked, already dreading the answer.
"Especially that one, as you've created a direct connection through your rayshift technology."
From their communication devices, Da Vinci's voice crackled with concern. "We're detecting massive energy fluctuations. Whatever's happening to that tree is affecting our systems here. Rayshift capabilities are becoming unstable."
Hassan of the Cursed Arm, who had been silently eliminating Dream Devourers from the shadows, materialized beside them. "The enemy is retreating," he reported. "But not in defeat. They are gathering elsewhere on the island."
Lián Wújiàn looked troubled, an expression that caused small fractures in the air around him. "They are preparing for something. We must understand what has disrupted the balance here." He turned to Ritsuka. "Master of Chaldea, I require your assistance. This realm is tied to my essence, and yet parts of it are now hidden from me. Together with your Servants, we might uncover the truth."
"We'll help," Ritsuka nodded. "But first, can you stabilize this area? We need a safe base of operations."
Lián considered for a moment, then reached into the folds of his cosmic robes. He withdrew what appeared to be a single strand of his own hair—a thread that contained entire galaxies within its length. With a gentle breath, he sent it floating upward where it expanded, forming a dome of protective energy around the Cosmic Tree and their immediate vicinity.
"This will hold for now," he explained, though the effort had visibly taxed him. "But we must be swift. Whatever force has managed to bind aspects of my power and corrupt my realm is no minor threat. If my suspicions are correct, reality itself may be at stake."
As if to emphasize his point, another star fell from the daylight sky, crashing into the distant mountains and sending shockwaves across the island. Where it landed, the landscape transformed, mountains briefly becoming liquid before resolving into crystalline spires.
"So much for vacation," Cu Chulainn muttered, leaning on his spear.
"On the contrary," Merlin remarked with his usual inappropriate cheerfulness. "What better adventure than saving reality itself? Though I do wish I'd packed more suitable attire."
Chapter 4: Islands Within Islands
As night fell—suddenly, as if someone had simply switched off the sun—the group gathered around a fire within the protective dome created by Lián Wújiàn. The flames burned with unusual colors, occasionally shifting to blue, purple, and even a deep cosmic black that somehow still provided light.
Through their communication link, they coordinated with Chaldea. More Servants would be deployed in the morning, but the growing instability made large-scale rayshifting risky.
"The island seems to be developing distinct zones," Da Vinci explained, sending through maps compiled from their reconnaissance data. "Each area exhibits different temporal and physical properties."
Ritsuka studied the holographic display projected from Mash's shield. "It's like the island is fragmenting into different realities."
"Precisely," Lián confirmed, his attention divided between their conversation and maintaining the protective barrier. Even at rest, he emanated such overwhelming power that the air around him remained subtly distorted. "What you're seeing is the manifestation of competing wills."
"Competing?" Gilgamesh picked up on the word immediately. "Then this corruption isn't random."
"No." Lián's multilayered eyes reflected the firelight in hypnotic patterns. "Someone or something is attempting to usurp control of this realm. The Dream Devourers are merely symptoms, tools being wielded against me."
Tamamo, who had been unusually quiet, finally spoke up. "I sense divine energy—but twisted, corrupted. As a divine spirit myself, I can feel its resonance."
"I feel it too," Jeanne added. "But unlike any divinity I encountered in life."
Lián nodded slowly, his floating hair creating patterns like slow-motion underwater choreography. "There are beings who exist between pantheons, gods who failed to establish dominion, divinities without worshippers. In the spaces between established realities, they hunger for power and recognition."
He gestured to the distant mountains, now crystalline and glowing with eerie light. "I believe one such entity has found a way to infiltrate this realm through my moment of weakness. It seeks to corrupt the Cosmic Tree and, through it, establish connections to more substantial realities—including your human history."
"What moment of weakness?" Merlin asked shrewdly. "Beings of your apparent caliber rarely admit to vulnerability."
A faint smile touched Lián's perfect features. "Perceptive, Flower Mage. I was engaged in a particularly deep meditation, attempting to resolve a paradox of existence across multiple timelines. Such work requires absolute concentration. During that moment, my awareness of this realm dimmed."
"And something seized the opportunity," Hassan concluded.
"But why can't you simply... eject this intruder?" Nero asked. "This is your realm, is it not?"
Lián's expression darkened, causing the fire to momentarily dim as well. "The intruder has bound aspects of my power using the corrupted portions of the Cosmic Tree. I am... incomplete. Limited. Though still far beyond most beings, I cannot simply rewrite reality as I normally might."
Ritsuka, ever the practical tactician, brought the conversation back to immediate concerns. "So we need to investigate these fragmented zones, identify the intruder, and free the corrupted parts of the tree."
"Yes," Lián confirmed. "But we must be cautious. Each zone will operate by its own rules—its own physics, its own flow of time. What is possible in one may be impossible in another."
"We should divide into teams," Mash suggested. "Cover more ground."
As they discussed strategy, Gilgamesh kept his crimson gaze fixed on their cosmic host. Despite his cooperation, something about Lián Wújiàn's story didn't quite add up to the King of Heroes. No being of such power would be so easily compromised, regardless of meditation. There was more to this situation than their host was revealing.
Chapter 5: The Midnight Garden
Dawn never came. Instead, the night deepened into something richer, a darkness alive with possibilities. Stars continued to fall, creating brief islands of daylight where they landed before being absorbed into the increasingly alien landscape.
The first team—consisting of Tamamo-no-Mae, Cu Chulainn, and Jeanne d'Arc led by Ritsuka—ventured toward what the maps identified as "The Midnight Garden." Once a tropical forest, it had transformed into a vast expanse of luminescent flora that bloomed only in darkness.
"Stay close," Tamamo cautioned, her fox ears twitching at sounds beyond human perception. "The boundary between worlds is especially thin here."
As they proceeded deeper into the garden, the plants responded to their presence—flowers turning to follow their movement, vines gently reaching out as if curious.
"These aren't ordinary plants," Jeanne observed, watching as a blossom the size of her head opened to reveal constellations swirling in its center.
"Nothing is ordinary here," Cu replied, keeping his spear ready. "Though I must admit, there's a strange beauty to it."
Ritsuka stopped suddenly, holding up a hand for silence. Ahead, in a clearing bathed in the light of particularly bright phosphorescent mushrooms, a figure knelt among the plants.
It appeared feminine, with skin that reflected the bioluminescence around her, making her look as if she were composed of living moonlight. When she turned at their approach, her eyes were pools of liquid silver, and her expression was one of curiosity rather than hostility.
"Visitors from the solid realm," she spoke, her voice like wind through crystal chimes. "Have you come to tend the garden of possibilities?"
Cu positioned himself protectively in front of Ritsuka. "And who might you be?"
The being smiled, an expression that sent ripples of light across her luminous skin. "I am Ephemera, tender of potential blooms. Each flower here represents a path untaken, a reality unborn."
"She's not a Dream Devourer," Tamamo whispered, "but she's not entirely of this realm either."
Jeanne stepped forward, her banner lowered non-threateningly. "We seek information about the corruption spreading through this island. The one who attacks Lián Wújiàn and the Cosmic Tree."
At the mention of Lián, Ephemera's expression shifted to one of complex emotion—fondness mixed with something like pity. "Ah, the Boundless Crown awakens at last. Tell me, did he speak of weakness? Of meditation interrupted?"
"He did," Ritsuka confirmed, studying the strange being carefully. "You know something about that?"
Ephemera rose, her flowing form composed of mist and moonlight as much as anything solid. "Lián Wújiàn does not meditate. His consciousness spans multiverses constantly—there is no 'distraction' possible for one such as him."
The revelation hung in the air between them.
"So he lied," Cu said flatly.
"Not necessarily," Ephemera replied, moving among her garden, touching flowers that changed color at her caress. "Lián exists beyond simplistic notions of truth and falsehood. What he experiences as truth may be... incomplete."
"Speak plainly," Tamamo demanded, her divine heritage making her less patient with metaphysical wordplay.
Ephemera sighed, a sound like distant waves. "The Cosmic Tree holds more than this realm together. It also maintains the coherence of Lián Wújiàn himself. He is not merely its guardian—he is its creation, its perfect expression. And something has introduced... dissonance."
She gestured for them to follow her deeper into the garden. As they walked, the plants parted before them, creating a path that hadn't existed moments before.
"Long ago," Ephemera continued, "before concepts like 'time' held meaning, the Cosmic Tree grew at the convergence of all possibilities. From its essence emerged beings who embodied its nature—guardians, shepherds, caretakers of reality. Lián Wújiàn was the most perfect of these."
They arrived at a pool of water so still it appeared solid. Its surface reflected not their faces but scenes from elsewhere on the island—the crystalline mountains, beaches where the sand flowed like liquid, forests where time ran backward.
"But perfection invites challenge," Ephemera said, waving a luminous hand over the pool. The image changed to show the base of the Cosmic Tree, where dark veins now visibly ran through portions of its trunk. "Another guardian, jealous of Lián's position, has long sought to supplant him. This one calls herself Méilán—the Endless Void."
"Another being like Lián?" Ritsuka asked, trying to grasp the scale of what they were dealing with.
"Similar in origin, different in nature," Ephemera explained. "Where Lián embodies possibility and creation, Méilán represents entropy and dissolution. Both necessary in the grand balance, but Méilán believes only her vision should prevail."
"And she's corrupting the tree to weaken Lián," Jeanne reasoned.
"Yes, but there's more." Ephemera's silver eyes dimmed with concern. "She hasn't merely weakened him—she's fractured his very being. The dissonance I mentioned? Lián Wújiàn is no longer whole. Aspects of his consciousness, his power, even his memories have been separated and hidden throughout the island."
Cu Chulainn crossed his arms. "So the meditation story..."
"Is how he perceives his own fragmentation," Ephemera nodded. "His mind creates a narrative to explain the inexplicable—that parts of himself are simply... missing."
The pool's surface rippled, showing an image of Lián Wújiàn beside the tree, in conversation with Mash and the second team. Despite his overwhelming presence, there was something almost imperceptibly asymmetrical about him now that they knew to look for it—as if certain aspects of his being were slightly out of alignment.
"What can we do?" Ritsuka asked, the tactician's mind already working on solutions.
Ephemera moved her hand through the pool, causing the water to spiral upward into a floating globe that displayed a map of the island. Five points of light pulsed at different locations.
"These are the fragments of Lián that Méilán has scattered and bound. Each is guarded by powerful constructs drawn from the dreams and nightmares of countless realities. Reclaim these fragments, return them to Lián, and he may be whole enough to confront Méilán directly."
"And if we don't?" Tamamo asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.
"Then Méilán will completely corrupt the Cosmic Tree. This realm will collapse, creating a cascading failure across connected realities—including your human history. And Lián Wújiàn, the Boundless Crown of All Paths, will cease to exist entirely."
The water globe dissolved into droplets that rained back into the pool, each creating ripples that showed glimpses of potential futures—most of them variations of total annihilation.
"Well," Cu Chulainn twirled his spear with grim determination, "vacation's definitely canceled."
Chapter 6: The Palace of Inverted Time
While Ritsuka's team explored the Midnight Garden, the second group—Gilgamesh, Merlin, and Nero, accompanied by Mash—ventured toward the crystalline mountains. What had once been natural peaks had transformed into geometric impossibilities, structures that seemed to fold into themselves at angles that shouldn't exist.
At the heart of this mountain range, they discovered what could only be described as a palace—though "palace" hardly did justice to the structure before them. Its spires reached upward in defiance of gravity, while other sections extended downward into the earth. Staircases led in impossible directions, and doorways opened onto vistas that couldn't possibly exist within the confines of the building.
"The Palace of Inverted Time," Merlin named it, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "I've heard legends..."
"Speak, magus," Gilgamesh commanded. "Your knowledge serves little purpose locked in your mind."
Merlin smiled thinly. "This place exists in stories told by gods to their children—a cautionary tale about the dangers of temporal manipulation. Inside, cause and effect are reversed. The future determines the past."
"How does one navigate such a place?" Nero asked, her imperial confidence slightly diminished before the impossible architecture.
"Very carefully," Merlin replied. "And with the understanding that your intentions will determine your actions, rather than the other way around."
"Nonsense," Gilgamesh scoffed. "No construct, no matter how divine, supersedes my will."
As they approached the main entrance—a doorway that seemed to shift between different architectural styles with each blink—a figure stepped forth to greet them. Unlike the Dream Devourers, this being appeared fully human, an elderly man with skin like polished mahogany and eyes that reflected the crystalline structures around them.
"Welcome," he bowed deeply, "to that which you have already visited. I am the Keeper of Endings, and I bid you enter what you have already explored."
Mash raised her shield slightly. "You speak in riddles."
"Here, all speech is riddled with time's inversion," the Keeper replied. "You seek that which you have already found—a fragment of divinity scattered before it was whole."
Gilgamesh stepped forward, his patience wearing thin. "Enough games. We seek a fragment of Lián Wújiàn's power, sealed away by one called Méilán."
At the mention of those names, the Keeper's expression grew grave. "Names of power should not be spoken so casually, King of Heroes. But yes, that which was hidden before it was taken rests within these halls. Follow, if you dare to remember what you have not yet experienced."
The interior of the palace defied rational description. Rooms opened into other rooms that shouldn't have connected. Windows showed different times of day—or different eras entirely. In one corridor, they witnessed what appeared to be the island's creation; in another, its potential destruction.
Most disturbing were the occasional glimpses of themselves walking these same halls—sometimes ahead of them, sometimes behind, engaged in conversations they hadn't yet had.
"This place disrupts the very concept of linear existence," Merlin observed as they followed the Keeper deeper into the labyrinth. "We must be careful not to become temporally dislocated."
"Speak plainly, magus," Nero demanded.
"He means we could get lost not just in space, but in time," Mash explained. "Become untethered from our proper moment."
The Keeper led them to a vast chamber where time's inversion was most apparent. Objects fell upward. Water flowed from puddles into a fountain. Shattered crystal vases reassembled themselves only to break again in an endless cycle.
And in the center, suspended in a column of light that bent backward upon itself, was what appeared to be a crystalline orb containing swirling cosmic energy—power so concentrated that reality warped around it.
"The fragment you will have found," the Keeper announced. "The aspect of Creation, torn from the Boundless Crown before he was sundered."
"How do we retrieve it?" Mash asked, studying the security of the chamber. No obvious guards, but the temporal distortions themselves seemed defense enough.
The Keeper smiled enigmatically. "That which is taken must first be given. That which is found must first be lost."
"More riddles," Gilgamesh spat. "Stand aside. I will claim this prize directly."
As the King of Heroes strode forward, the temporal distortions intensified. His movements became disjointed—sometimes appearing to walk backward while moving forward, sometimes splitting into multiple afterimages that moved in different directions simultaneously.
"Gilgamesh, wait!" Merlin called out, but his warning came too late.
As the King of Heroes reached for the suspended orb, time itself seemed to reject him. He was thrown backward with tremendous force, colliding with a pillar that shattered before reforming around him, temporarily imprisoning him in crystal.
"Direct action fails where causality is inverted," the Keeper observed calmly. "The fragment cannot be taken because it was never given."
Nero stepped forward, her imperial pride rising to the challenge. "Then perhaps what is needed is not the hand of conquest, but the hand of authority. In Rome, I decreed what was possible and what was not."
"Nero, be careful," Mash cautioned.
But the emperor had already approached the column of light. Rather than reaching for the orb directly, she stoo